Empúries Greek and Roman Ruins

Empúries, on the Gulf of Roses coast near the town of L'Escala in the Alt Empordà comarca of Girona province, is the only archaeological site in the Iberian Peninsula where Greek and Roman urban layers are simultaneously visible and accessible. The site was founded as a Greek trading colony around 575 BCE by Phocaean merchants from Massalia (modern Marseille), initially on a small offshore island (now connected to the mainland) called Palaiopolis, later expanding to a mainland settlement, the Neapolis, from the 5th century BCE onward. The name Emporion (Empúries in Catalan) derives from the Greek for trading place, and the colony served as the primary Greek commercial contact point with the Iberian peoples of the peninsula for three centuries. In 218 BCE, during the Second Punic War against Carthage, Roman forces under Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio landed at Emporion — the first Roman army to set foot on the Iberian Peninsula — and a Roman colonial town (Emporiae) gradually developed to the northwest of the Greek settlement. The site preserves the visible remains of the Greek Neapolis including the agora, sanctuaries of Asclepius and Serapis, and a stretch of the city wall facing the sea. The Roman town's remains include a forum, street grid, domestic buildings with intact mosaic floors of remarkable quality, defensive walls, and the foundations of a basilica. Excavated objects from both colonies — sculpture, ceramics, coins, glassware, and jewelry — are displayed in the on-site Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya-Empúries, included in the site admission. The ruins overlook a sheltered sandy beach used for swimming.